telnet www.yourdomain.com 80

Assuming you want to view the raw HTTP response from a Web page at http://www.yourdomain.com/index.html you can use the following telnet syntax (example from dos prompt, note the '.' blank line).

telnet www.yourdomain.com 80
GET /index.html
host: www.yourdomain.com
.

Note that this does not support NTLM with IIS servers for those enterprise users.

Hurricane Sandy

Like most New York'ers (or at least those of us living in and around the big apple) I was hit by Hurricane Sandy.

Unlike many I was only inconvenienced by the storm rather than uprooted.  My co-op building was well above sea level and not at risk to the rising water. We did lose power and water for five days which was very inconvenient but not in itself life threatening; I’d stored up plenty of food and drinking and flushing water. For me it was the equivalent to going camping in my apartment.

My nightlight during the blackout

I do admin to some apprehension on the thought that one of my neighbors would knock over a candle and burn the block to the ground.  All throughout the dark night fire trucks would be rushing off to the next crises while I hoped they would pass my block bye. Such are the fears of a country boy living in the crowded city.

It was very odd after the storm passed and the city rushed back to “normal”.

Power was out south of 39^th street, in my neighborhood, and so stores were closed, street lights dark, and people were bucketing water up to their cold apartments. During the days, they would wandered the post apocalyptic streets looking for coffee or a WiFi hot spot. We jokingly called this area SoNoPow - for South with No Power. 

North of that business were open and people rushed around and complained about the traffic delays as if those were personal attacks against their dignity. Through this I may have got a bit of perspective of what a homeless person might feel, on how out of touch the iPad and latte world was with someone who’s priority it was to find food and shelter for the night. And how that other world really doesn't want to think about those who are in need when they can focus on any threat to their needs.

Leather Three-Pocket Fairing Pouch

Leather Three-Pocket Fairing Pouch

My sister, who is a big motorcyclist herself, gave me the above three pocket fairing pouch for Christmas.  When I replaced my windshield with the extra tall version (trying to reduce some of the buffeting doing down the highway) it was a perfect opportunity to install the pouch and, no shown here, a nice chrome accent strip.

FAST ESP 5.3 - change the index location

Steps to move the FAST ESP v5.3 index to another drive or path. This was tested with the FSIA version of FAST but should be applicable to other implementations.

Note that AFAIK the drive and path must be consistent between all index/search nodes (due to rtssearchrc) and data_fixml and data_index still have to be on the same drive (which is a shame).

A. Stop all indexer and search processes on all nodes.

B. On Admin node, edit the webcluster file:

1. \esp\etc\config_data\RTSearch\webcluster\rtsearchrc.xml

Change the $RTROOT variable to a hard coded path in

•     fixmlPath="E:\esp\data\data_fixml"
•     indexDir="E:\esp\data\data_index"

C. On EACH of the index and or search nodes update the following two files:

2. \esp\etc\searchrc-1.xml

• indexpath= "E:\esp\data\data_index"

3. \esp\etc\rtsplatformrc.xml

• indexDir = "E:\esp\data\data_index"
• fixmlDir = "E:\esp\data\data_fixml"

D. Restart indexer and search processes.

Reflection: Dynamically instantiating a class

The requirement was for a command line utility that accepted a "function" name and a list of parameters, where the parameters could be different for each function.

This is a fairly common requirement, which I don't want to have to look up again, so I thought I'd document my solution here.

My first thought was a switch on the function name, but that quickly became messy with the variable parameters. After consideration, it was simpler to implement each function as a class, then use reflection to instantiate the class and pass in command line parameters. To support dynamically creating the class, I used a common Interface with a Run method that accepted the command line parameters.

 namespace CodeExamples  
 {  
   interface IExample  
   {  
     void Run(string[] args);  
   }    
   class Program  
   {  
     static void Main(string[] args)  
     {  
       try  
       {  
         if (args.Length < 1)  
         {  
           Console.WriteLine("Syntax: CodeExample typeName [args]");  
         }  
         else  
         {  
           string assemblyName = "CodeExamples.";  
           string typeName = args[0];  
           Assembly = System.Reflection.Assembly.GetExecutingAssembly();  
           Type type = assembly.GetType(assemblyName + typeName);  
           IExample example = (IExample)Activator.CreateInstance(type);  
           example.Run(args);  
         }  
       }  
       catch (Exception e)  
       {  
         Console.WriteLine("\nEXCEPTION: {0}\n{1}", e.Message, e.StackTrace);  
       }  
     }  
   }  
 }  

1,000 hours playing Skyrim

I've played 1,000 hours of Skyrim. Okay, it's not something to be overly proud of, it's not like saving the whales or adopting a highway, but lacking any major accomplishments over the dark dreary days of winter I guess it will do. For those who don't know this game, it is a computer based single player role playing game. The basic premise is you play a character who has a destiny to defeat evil dragons ... but you can pretty much ignore that if you want and do anything else you want. The world is completely open ended; spend the day raiding dungeons or picking potatoes. It's an alternative life.

Long Way Around

In the cold months we often need a little riding inspiration - how about a trip around the world on bikes? Check out the documented "Long Way Around" with your favorite Jedi Knight Ewan McGregor and his pal Charley Boorman. I was very pleased with the first few episodes that went through some very rough areas in Asia and even enjoyed the "brit's" view of a trip across North America. Makes planning my cross country trip seem much more approachable.

IF

If you can keep your head when all about you
Are losing theirs and blaming it on you;
If you can trust yourself when all men doubt you,
But make allowance for their doubting too:
If you can wait and not be tired by waiting,
Or, being lied about, don't deal in lies,
Or being hated don't give way to hating,
And yet don't look too good, nor talk too wise;


If you can dream---and not make dreams your master;
If you can think---and not make thoughts your aim,
If you can meet with Triumph and Disaster
And treat those two impostors just the same:.
If you can bear to hear the truth you've spoken
Twisted by knaves to make a trap for fools,
Or watch the things you gave your life to, broken,
And stoop and build'em up with worn-out tools;


If you can make one heap of all your winnings
And risk it on one turn of pitch-and-toss,
And lose, and start again at your beginnings,
And never breathe a word about your loss:
If you can force your heart and nerve and sinew
To serve your turn long after they are gone,
And so hold on when there is nothing in you
Except the Will which says to them: "Hold on!"


If you can talk with crowds and keep your virtue,
Or walk with Kings---nor lose the common touch,
If neither foes nor loving friends can hurt you,
If all men count with you, but none too much:
If you can fill the unforgiving minute
With sixty seconds' worth of distance run,
Yours is the Earth and everything that's in it,
And---which is more---you'll be a Man, my son! 


Rudyard Kipling